Microsoft ends Pentagon tech systems support from China
WASHINGTON
Microsoft has said it is making sure that personnel based in China are not providing technical support for U.S. Defense Department systems, after investigative news site ProPublica revealed the practice.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth confirmed that work on Defense Department cloud services had been outsourced to people in China, insisting that the country will not have "any involvement whatsoever" with the department's systems going forward.
"Microsoft has made changes to our support for U.S. Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services," the company's chief communications officer, Frank Shaw, said in a post on X.
ProPublica reported on July 15 that the tech giant was using engineers based in China to maintain Pentagon computer systems, with only limited supervision by U.S. personnel who often lacked the necessary expertise to do the job effectively.
U.S. Senator Tom Cotton asked Hegseth to look into the matter in a letter, and the Pentagon chief responded that he would do so.
Hegseth then posted a video on X g in which he said "it turns out that some tech companies have been using cheap Chinese labor to assist with DoD cloud services. This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today's digital threat environment."
"At my direction, the department will initiate, as fast as we can, a two-week review, or faster, to make sure that what we uncovered isn't happening anywhere else across the DoD," he said.
